I Bid 43 No Trump

The stock market continued to post new highs last week and the chattering classes battled over politically biased ownership claims. I enjoyed the silliness sipping a Crozes-Hermitage GSM, as my dog had predicted the increase months ago without political affiliation.

First, a few data points: Jan 2015 12 M LIBOR = .63 and EFF = .12

Jan 2016 the sets were 1.169 and .38. and Jan 2017 was 1.689 and .66 and March/April should be interesting.

As we suggested a year ago, the calibration of monetary policy, provided an exogenous mishap could be avoided, would become more powerful over the ensuing months. The beneficiaries of said calibration would be "anything but Treasuries and the economy" in decreasing connection. With the Taylor Rule finally being disparaged publicly by more respected talking heads than mine (@TheStalwart had me on WDYM twice over the past 2 years discussing its flaws), we will continue to monitor policy through our historically more accurate and market profitable metric.

Looking at the simple Jan samples above, we can see that Zirp 2015 was an "equilibrium calibration at best. (FF "should" have been slightly negative) in Jan of last year the metric moved to +.16 and in Jan 2017, +.43. (The higher the number the higher the loose policy efficacy. There is a whip crack effect and a lag, obviously) In Q3 2015 we suggested that the effects should manifest themselves 6 to 9 months hence.

The SP has roughly crawled from 2000 to 2360 over that long dirge span. About 200 of those points were scored since Nov, more an indication of election resolution than dog whistled victor administration policy possibilities. More importantly, the real economy metrics behind the stock market scoreboard are spotting up after nearly 18 months of positive cluster.

March looks to come in like a Lamb around 1.75 but could go out like a Lion if European pressures that have aided the positive calibration impact here were to abate abate. A steadying, or decline, from the prevailing .43 spread would be a tell. However, spreads of 100 + or - are not uncommon in cycles hitting on more cylinders. Then, historically, the Fed screws it up.